Tuesday, April 17, 2012

There was a blog post by veteran Huffington Post blogger Ethan Casey that appeared recently in the "Miami" section. Mr. Casey was talking about a scandal involving the owned of the Miami Marlins praising Fidel Castro for surviving and staying in power so long. This offended quite a few of the residents of Miami, Cubans who risked their necks to get away from Castro and his heavy handed rule. This outrage bothered Mr. Casey. A lot:

"So, notwithstanding whether Ozzie Guillen was unwise or tactless to open his trap in the first place (he was both), the fact that the Cuban-American community of South Florida has successfully bullied him into apologizing and the Marlins into suspending him for five games matters, reaches well beyond both the state line and the foul lines. Indeed it matters as far from Miami as Seattle, where I live and where I write this."

So in other words, the Cuban-American community should have just shut the heck up and left Guillen alone. Guillen didn't apologize because what he said was wrong, oh no sir. He apologized because those mean old Cubans forced him to.

Now I understand what he is saying: that sometimes people overreact to comments that are ultimately not that big of a deal. Mr. Casey didn't think that Guillen's comments were worth the reaction that they received. But of course he isn't Cuban and he doesn't have that relationship with Castro that some Cuban-Americans do, so I'm not sure where he gets off judging them about it, nor why the story bothers him so much.

You're probably wondering why we're writing about this. It's because, pretty much out of nowhere, Mr. Casey then drags the Jews into it:

"I'm setting myself up for grief by drawing the following analogy, but it's too obvious to ignore: the way the Florida Cubans bully the rest of us into either silence or acquiescence with their blanket demonization of Castro is a lot like the way the pro-Israel lobby aggressively stifles any and every attempt at honest discussion of Israel. In both cases we have communities that are among the more affluent and influential sectors of American society having it both ways: at once exercising quite frankly the power that they know darn well they possess, and playing the ultimate American trump card: claimed victim status."

Yep that's right. Ever single "honest discussion" about Israel is "aggressively stifled." This has now become one of the tenants of the religion that is the Huffington Post. Everyone believes it from the highest editors to the lowliest commentator and don't you dare disagree. Of course I'm curious what exactly Mr. Casey would write about either of these topics if "the affluent and influential sectors of American society" weren't keeping him down. I have a feeling it would make Michael Carmichael and Sharmine Narwani proud. But that's a guess, since Mr. Casey is clearly so enamored with being a victim that he'll never actually put his beliefs on the line and test it.

Instead he doubles down:

"Despite being none of the above -- neither a Jew nor an Arab nor a Muslim nor a Cuban, nor even a Floridian -- I absolutely do claim a stake, as an American, in debates over both Israel and Cuba, exactly because the American lobbies that consider those two countries so damn important are perpetually shoving them in my face."

Um, okay. I read the news pretty closely and I have never felt that Cuba has ever been "shoved in my face." In fact it's something I'd rather learn more about. Ditto with Israel most Americans don't pay much attention to what is happening there. Sure, the Huffington Post throws Israel related stories in big raging letters on a weekly basis, but unless Mr. Casey thinks that "the lobby" controls them as well it doesn't help his point.

In summary he doesn't like that small groups of people like Cubans and Jews get together and use their influence to pursue their goals. That's also known as democracy. Mr. Casey has some mealy-mouthed excuse at the end where he says he wants "Americans of all shapes and sizes, colors, ethnicity, whatever, could realize that we're all in this together and start pulling in the same direction." But in all honesty it sounds to me like he just doesn't like Cuba and Israel, and wishes their supporters would sit down and shut up and let him talk without dissent. Nor is he the first Huffington Post blogger to express such an attitude.

Fortunately most of the commentators didn't agree with him. You can check it out and see for yourself.

This guy to me, just sounds like a typical Jew hater, who will use *ANY* excuse or reason to bring up Israel and spout his dribble. The thread is heavily 'moderated', I'm assuming by Casey himself, since he seems to be replying to a good deal of comments, and removing a good deal as well.

I just don't like that he tries to come in through the back door, using baseball as an excuse for his own political beliefs, that he makes quite clear.

He says at one point int he article, "Like many people, I prefer to keep my politics and my baseball in separate pigeonholes, but there are times when that's not feasible or allowable."

I call BullShitt, there are times that he should indeed "keep [his] politics and [his] baseball in separate pigeonholes"….where it is perfectly "feasible AND allowable",and this was one of those times.

The thing that stands out in both the article and the comments (where the author kept butting in and pointing out all the ways anyone who didn't agree with his badly written pap was terrible, along with agreeing with one moronic poster who somehow made an even lamer Ozzie Guillen/Israel bashing segue than the original post did) is the undying HP idea that "bullying" translates to "not agreeing with everything I have to say".

Hey guys we've started to employ a slight comment policy. We used to have completely open comments but then people abused it. So our comment policy is such: No obvious trolling or spamming. And be warned: unlike the Huffington Post we actually enforce our comment policy.

This is the mission statement of the Huffington Post Monitor blog:

The Internet news website the Huffington Post has become a home to a subsect of commentators expressing anti-Israel hate speech and anti-Semitism. We are two brothers dedicated to exposing these people and revealing their hatred, as well as dismantling some of their arguments. If you would like to help us, you can comment on the posts or contact us at huffpomonitor@gmail.com .